Ink
by 9r7g5h
Summary: She was young when she first saw the ink.


**AN** : I started writing this when the creation of Elyza Lex first began, but never finished it until now. I hope you enjoy!

 **Disclaimer** : I do not own Fear the Walking Dead.

* * *

She was five when the marks started to appear, broken handwriting and messed up letters swirling together to make one, single message-'My name is Elyza.'

Alicia, still a bit iffy with her reading at the time, had raised her hand for the teacher's help to find out what it said, only to find herself packed up and sent home early, the entire school in a tizzy over the silly little marks. It was just a name, she worked out by herself in the principal's office, another girl's name that had just appeared on her arm while she was working on her math worksheet. Why it would cause such a big deal, she didn't know, but the whole situation was dumb- she was missing recess, and while going home early was cool, she knew it wouldn't be a good thing, if everyone's reaction was anything to go off of.

Her mother came to get her, her lips pressed into a thin, nervous line, only to break into a shaky smile when she knelt down next to her daughter to read her arm. Her fingers light, she had traced the writing- all five or six lines of it, for more had showed up during her time at the office, the same four words repeated in increasingly better handwriting until, on the last line, the 'a' went missing. As if someone had taken away the writer's pen, leaving the word left blank. When she'd finished, Mom had just pulled her into a hug, kissed the top of her head in a relieved sort of way, and taken her to get ice cream.

That night, sandwiched on the couch between her parents, Alicia had learned all about soul mates. How they would be a perfect match when they grew up, each other's best friend, companion, spouse. How not everyone had one, and how most people didn't find out until they were teenagers whether or not they did, but having one meant something special. 'It's a built in buddy from the universe,' her father had explained, showing her his arm as her mother doodled a smiley face on her hand, only for it to show up a moment later on his.

Neither could explain why the ink sunk from her skin into his- if they were to be believed when she asked, no one did. Just that, ever since humanity had purposefully started putting temporary decorations on their skin, soul mates had shared the marks. Again, for most pairs, the ability didn't appear until they were teenagers, but for them, her and the mysterious Elyza?

They bond was strong, and the universe wanted them to know as soon as it could.

That night, Alicia stole one of the pens from her father's desk and, in the half light of her nightlight, wrote a message of her own.

'Hi Elyza. My name's Alicia.'

When no one responded, Alicia figured her soul mate had gone to sleep already, and would respond in the morning, so she did the same.

When, a week later, she still hadn't gotten a response to her barrage of questions, Alicia, almost in tears, went back to her mother, who just shook her head and smiled.

"You're young, my love," she had said soothingly, "and your bond beginning might have been a fluke. Just wait for a while, and when you're older, she'll respond. I just know it."

Alicia, never one to be patient for something, had just stomped her foot and walked away, determined to find a way to talk to her soul mate, bond or not.

Turns out you needed more than a first name to send a letter, Mom and Dad's emails had passwords she couldn't use, and when she tried to walk to her soulmate, the police found her a few hours after she snuck away from school and just brought her back home.

So she wrote. Every day, she wrote on her skin, covering every inch in words and swirls and doodles. Hoping, one day, she would get some kind of response, just something, anything, that would give some kind of indication that the bond had returned, that she could talk to the girl on the other line.

It took six months, six months of fake conversations and messy art and draining pen after pen to finally get a response.

'Who are you?'

She almost didn't notice it between the swirls, the handwriting much neater then it had been six months before, but finally it appeared, the words she had been hoping to see- those three little words that told her someone was on the other side, someone new who she was, that she hadn't just made it up all those months ago.

'My name is Alicia. Are you Eliza?'

She waited and watched and laughed as finally she got the response she wanted, as finally she saw word after word, sentence after sentence, appear on her skin, exciting scrawl quickly becoming almost unreadable as her excitement grew. Not that she was any better, her own writing a jumbled mess that overlapped with everything else on her arm, but Alicia didn't and couldn't care. She had finally gotten the response she wanted, had finally received confirmation from her soulmate, from Eliza, that she was there.

At the time, she had no way to know that, in twelve years, she would, once again, be waiting for some kind of response, be waiting for the handwriting she had become so familiar with, to show up again on skin. She had no way of knowing that she would beg for it to appear, for a single word letting her know that Eliza was ok, that the careful plans she and Eliza had created and started saving up for, that the plane tickets and the travel guides and everything they needed to find each other would go to waste as she just waited for a word.

At the time, Alicia had no idea of wait waited her and her soulmate, for at five years old, she was just happy to know her name.


End file.
